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17.

I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world,          and upon all oppression and shame,

I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at          anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds          done;

I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children,          dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate,

I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the          treacherous seducer of the young woman,

I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love,          attempted to be hid—I see these sights on the          earth,

I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny—I          see martyrs and prisoners,

I observe a famine at sea—I observe the sailors          casting lots who shall be killed, to preserve the          lives of the rest,

I observe the slights and degradations cast by arro-          gant persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon          negroes, and the like;

All these—All the meanness and agony without end,          I sitting, look out upon,

See, hear, and am silent.

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